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What is happening to Naruto?
This constant torture with fillers and shitty episodes is just too much.

It's funny that you say that, since the general consensus across forums seems to be that these war fillers are pretty decent overall.
But to answer your question, nothing is happening to Naruto. Just like the last two years, the fall season is filler season. Fillers are a necessary evil that is needed for reasons that have been explained a thousand times and then some.

So yeah, this was the best filler episode that there ever was, at least as far as production quality goes. Some really high profile animators involved and some really good fighting scenes. Too bad the episode slowed down in the second half to follow the story of a couple of kids no one cares about, but it's definitely worth watching for the first half.
Next week's episode looks great, too.

Finally some Naruto, but seems like it's just a filler again.
Doing some random mission...
I can't say it was bad watching a usual Naruto-on-a-mission.
It was more nostalgic and reminded me of the old days.
At least the enemy was pretty good and connected to the current war.
The second part was sort of a story of its own..

So we have 5 no name fodder edo tensi plus Hayate a mere special jounin and Hidan (who at least is good for fun and fluid fight scenes) for the good guys to beat so that's good at least.

The reason we get so many fillers in Naruto is that for the first 2 arcs (kazekage rescue and Sai & Sasuke) they tried slowing the pace and it was HATED in Japan so they sped it up starting with the Hidan and Kakazu arc but had to start using filler lots and lots of filler.

A segment of anime, whether it be an entire episode or part of one, which does not appear in the manga of the title. Fillers, as the name implies, "fills" an episode with non-canonical material which has been written usually by the same company which animates it.

Animation companies utilize fillers for a number of reasons:

** If the companies feel that the anime is catching up to the manga too quickly, they will insert entire filler episodes to allow the manga writer to write more chapters.

** Anime versions are usually able to adapt at least two manga chapters per anime episode. If the anime writers feel that a crucial chapter should not be aired in the last part of an episode, they will add a filler segment to make up for this, and air the crucial parts in a fresh episode.

** If the anime gains huge popularity amongst the viewers, anime companies often add fillers to extend the anime, capitalizing off the popularity (one example of this is Naruto, airing fillers for over a year, turning the anime stale).

It is a common misconception that "fillers" are only used to refer to entire non-canonical episodes. This is due to 14 year old anime fans bastardizing this word by drawing it out of context in its use.

ughh i hate this guys animation. Its the same guy who ruined naruto vs pain.

More proof that the people that think Naruto vs Pain looked bad have no idea what they're talking about.

Unfortunately, the guy that "ruined" Naruto vs Pain had nothing to do with this episode (he directed and animated the latest ED all by himself, though!). And by the way, it's not one guy that makes or breaks an episode. Lots of people work on a single episode, and the most important roles are generally split between different people.

Here's some information for you.
The director/storyboarder for today's episode was Toshiyuki Tsuru. He's directed episodes 17, 19 and 48 of the original Naruto series, and episodes 82, 85, 123 and 166 of Shippuden. He's also directed most of the Naruto/Shippuden openings, plus some endings.
He's also the guy who is writing this mini filler arc, which is a first.
The animation director for today's episode was Hirofumi Suzuki. He's the animation director of choice for Tsuru's episodes/OPs/EDs. You don't see him anywhere else as far as Naruto goes.

Key animators for today's episode include Norio Matsumoto (a fighting animation legend, you must have heard of him), Shingo Yamashita (one of the most unique animators in the industry right now, did the recent Shin Sekai Yori ending), Hiroyuki Yamashita (the best of the Naruto in-house animators, really good at action too) and Tokuyuki Matsutake (an animation veteran, you pretty much only see him on Toshiyuki Tsuru's episodes as far as Naruto goes).

There is no sign of Atsushi Wakabayashi, the guy who was director, animation director and did the storyboard for the Naruto vs Pain episode you hated so much. Norio Matsumoto and Shingo Yamashita were actually 2 of the 4 key animators that animated the Naruto vs Pain episode, but they did a much smaller part on today's episode.

That Naruto vs Pain episode still had some incredibly good drawings (mainly during the last part, the Norio Matsumoto one). I think the sketchiness was more of a result of Shingo Yamashita's style (he did the first part) and possibly of Kenichi Kutsuna's style (the did the part in the middle) than an actual will to leave things sketchy for the sake of the animation.

This episode was very much like a movie, and it will be about as long as one of the movies when you figure the length of the episodes. It should be interesting to see what questions it answers between after Pain and Kabuto's immense power jump.

I should also comment on last week's episode. I liked the sweet ending between Omoi and Ringo.

Based on the recent posts in this thread i watched the filler episode and i hope they'll use this quality of animation for the real story too. The best parts of the war will come and it would be annoying if they screwed it up with crap animation after they showed us in this episode what they are capable of if they really care about an episode. The filler story seems to be acceptable even if there are some stupid parts in it. For example why would Konoha let Naruto go on a mission when they clearly know that akatsuki is after him. Then we have some dumb moves from Naruto too, he just attacked Kabuto mindlessly instead of thinking of a plan, he should have some clone hidden nearby which is collecting natural energy in the next episode. One thing that would totally ruin this filler is if the guy who beat Pain is dumbed down both in power and mentally. I hope if they have quality of animation that means they have a decent filler story for once.

For example why would Konoha let Naruto go on a mission when they clearly know that akatsuki is after him.

Haha, that's a good point. But the arc already doesn't fit the canon timeline, so I think it's pointless to be bothered by such details. Just take the story for what it is.
Think of this arc as a Naruto movie that has been split in six parts.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ero-Senn1n

Then we have some dumb moves from Naruto too, he just attacked Kabuto mindlessly instead of thinking of a plan, he should have some clone hidden nearby which is collecting natural energy in the next episode.

It was just an excuse to make the rest of the team notice Kabuto quickly. Doing what you say would have looked out of place in the context of the episode's narrative. It would have ruined the flow of the episode.
In the end it's not like Naruto was acting particularly out of character, so I don't see the problem. I'm cool with Rasengan attacks out of nowhere when they look bad-ass like this.